It’s not a great thing to be Batman’s protege. You get shot at, blown up, killed, and — like Menudo, the Boy Scouts, or the Disney Channel — you get kicked out once you get too old. Robin is little more than a brightly colored sprite for criminals to shoot at instead of Batman, much like how a magician would use a sexy assistant to distract the audience. Except this sexy assistant is (usually) a nubile young boy, and stands a much better chance of actually getting sawed in half.

Robin has been part of the Batman mythos for 70 years. Even in real time, that means Batman must have gone through a slew of supple young teens by now. But in comic time? Hoo boy.

So just how many goddamn Robins are there anyway? (And why isn’t Batman clever enough to think of another alias for his underage sidekicks?)
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So I rented the movie Get Him to the Greek from Netflix. I was a big fan of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but missed this quasi-sequel in its theatrical run. I think renting a movie before purchasing is a perfectly acceptable and legal way of watching a movie, and allows me to make an informed decision before deciding if I like a movie enough to re-watch it often enough to warrant owning it.

Netflix is often times presented with bare-bones discs, which is fine if you just want the movie. After the movie was over, the DVD returned specifically to the special features menu. Seeing a slate of deleted scenes, I thought I’d continue the laughs and opted to “play all.” I was presented with a message: “This disc is intended for rental purposes and only includes the feature film. Own it on Blu-Ray or DVD to view these bonus features and complete your movie watching experience.”

Universal Pictures, it seems, was content to load only the movie on the disc, but not change the menus so that selecting ANY option other than the movie will show the above message. This is really obnoxious and annoying and I’m wondering how many movies I’ve rented from Netflix with similar messages I never accessed.

I’d like to mention that I’m not really against a bare-bones DVD release for renters, but to keep all the menus in tact and waive this “PLEASE BUY THE MOVIE” message up front is fairly strange, and almost abusive to the viewer. Why do I feel like a criminal when I pay my Netflix bill? You guys sold them the DVD! I could’ve downloaded a pirate copy and seen no such message!

Sadly, the tactic worked, as the movie was hilarious and I’ll probably buy it to watch any expanded features. Still, there is a nice way to do things and I’m not sure Universal did it.

In a world where Mass Effect and Dragon Age exist, there’s really no good reason to obfuscate the process of importing save data from a game sequel’s predecessor — and yet Lionhead Studios has managed to do this with Fable III.

So how do I make sure Fable III imports the Fable II character I want?

• Launch Fable II
• Select your desired hero
• Once in the game world, save and quit
• Launch Fable III and start a new game

This tidbit of wisdom was gleaned after an hour of trial and error, following 40 minutes of otherwise enjoyable gameplay that was riddled with the uncertainty that any import had in fact occurred.

What the hell, Peter Molyneux? If the intent was to keep the player immersed in the game world, then this oversight makes that goal an impossibility, and now my entire perception of Fable III is colored by it.
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This is a big week for releases, poweteers! Fable 3! Rock Band 3! Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2! and more!
Check ’em out after the break and be sure to click on the links if you want to purchase one to help our site out.

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Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Boy us geeks sure like to quote stuff. Take any random message board, comment section or chat room(do people still use those?) and you’ll see conversation frequently interrupted statements like “War not makes one great!” or “Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam!?” or “I’ve got better things to do tonight than die”

Yes, quotes are part of our language. It might be a lazy way of communicating, but quotes allow us to shout our interests at others. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Before Final Fantasy VII, the role playing game genre just wasn’t that popular. Playing a turd like this, I can see why, as this must have been what games like Dragon Warrior and Zelda must have looked like to most gamers. Believe it or not, this was actually a very popular RPG for Japanese computer systems. It was regarded as one of the first console RPGs. However, it wasn’t bought to America until a few years later, and it’s ‘innovations’ had already been done by other games, most notably the awesome Legend of Zelda. By it’s release, not only were the graphics sub-par, the story was virtually nonexistent and the gameplay was a serious and boring pain in the ass. With stupid looking enemies, a nonsensical battle system, and boring gameplay, this early NES game would turn anyone off to the genre. For years to come, this game’s pitfalls caused mainstream gamers to sleep on quality titles such as Lufia, 7th Saga, and Final Fantasy 2 – 6, or at least that’s what I think happened. After all, who’d want to play this crap when they could be playing Double Dragon or Castlevania?
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Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty franchise had successfully usurped Medal of Honor as the premier WWII FPS franchise. Unfortunately, it also took MOH’s place as the poster child for genre burnout. Thankfully, developer Infinity Ward realized this fact, and took the next COD game into a whole new era, or more specifically, the modern world. While players were initially worried that Modern Warfare will be exploitative of the War on Terror, they were happy to learn that the game took a different route. Instead of basing it on the current conflicts in the Middle East, Modern Warfare thrust players into an epic conflict that takes its cue from action movies as opposed to the evening news.
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Not much in big releases this week. A new Naruto game and Fallout New Vegas. Kirby Yarn is listed again, but I’m not sure what thats about. Looks like its also released for the PS2 as well. Thats interesting. Listings are after the jump!
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